Hard Rain Tesserae
by Framling
Summary: After the events of The Avengers, everyone buries their dead, and the world starts to recover. Mostly. Features nearly everyone except Thor. In this final chapter, a homecoming.
1. One hundred drummers

**_A/N: There is some fantastic art for this. You'll find it at works 554656_**

**_1. One hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'_**

_Captain America gives speech to crowd in New York. Photo: P. Parker.  
NEW YORK, USA (Reuters) - Thousands of New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to pay their respects to the emergency service workers and civilians who lost their lives in last week's attacks. For the second time in this young century, the city of New York was the site of a tragedy unlike any previously occurring in the USA, and for the second time the citizens rallied to recover. One very old citizen was on hand to give a memorial speech. Eyes all over the world were glued to their television screens as Steve Rogers, the recently-awoken Captain America and de facto leader of the newly-formed "Avengers" who made such a difference in the attacks, spoke humbly of the heroics of those who gave their lives in defence of their city - in defense, some might say, of (continued p.2)_

There was a public funeral for the dead police officers and firemen of New York. New Yorkers being New Yorkers, the procession route had been crowded with volunteers as soon as the city had had its chance to catch its breath; all the fires extinguished, the citizens turned up with every possible tool and cleaning implement they could think of. Their ranks held everyone from engineers and construction workers to inspect and secure buildings whose original blueprints had not included gaping holes in their walls to teenagers with brooms and thermoses of coffee. Other parts of Manhattan were still a shambles, but by the gorgeously sunny Saturday afternoon the route was clear, passable, and either safe for crowds or roped off. Being underground, the subway had not been badly damaged by what the Twitter-verse was calling #etsinnyc , and proved invaluable for ferrying construction supplies and workers to and from the hardest-hit areas where rubble cluttered the streets.

Steve rode the subway in from Brooklyn for the procession, alongside a bunch of folks who, but for their clothes, weren't a whole lot different from the people he'd ridden the subway with a few months ago. Decades ago. This would take some getting used to. Stark - Tony, he reminded himself - Tony had offered to fly him in to City Hall to save time, but he'd turned down the offer. Today wasn't about him, and being flown in by a bright red-and-gold rocket-man in full view of everyone would be disrespectful. Even if, he had to admit to himself somewhat sheepishly, the ride itself'd be pretty fun. Maybe another time. For now, he was content with holding on to a hanging strap and being just a face in the crowd of people crammed into the subway carriage. Being able to see over the heads of most of the throng was nice, too.

He let the current carry him out of the train and up the stairs onto the street and around an area surrounded with concrete dividers and caution signs, towards the cordon surrounding a stage in City Hall Park. People were milling about on the grass, but they all seemed to be behaving themselves. A small child, of that age where Steve had trouble telling boys from girls, was staring at him, so he waved. The kid waved back, and his mother scooped him up, scolding him.  
"Sorry, sir! I've been trying to teach him not to stare at strangers..."  
Steve grinned. "It's fine, ma'am, I don't mind. I've been stared at by worse." He stuck his tongue out at the little boy, who giggled and responded in kind. "Er..." Steve looked guiltily up at the boy's mother. "Sorry. I hope he doesn't make a habit of doing that to people now." The woman sighed and ran her free hand down her face.  
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll pick up worse habits as he gets older."  
"I've, uh, got to be going. Nice to meet you, ma'am. Handsome boy you have there." Steve beat a hasty escape and headed for the cordoned-off area, where there was a stage equipped with some microphones and a loudspeaker. There was bunting, too, the red-white-and-blue banded with black, and he cringed a bit. He did not have fond memories of bunting. At least there weren't likely to be any dancing girls. At least, he didn't think so. Things had gotten a lot more relaxed in the future. He liked it, mostly, but some occasions needed a certain dignity.

He dug the badge Fury had given him out of his pocket and showed it to the police officer who looked to be in charge. The cop checked the name against a list on a clipboard, glanced at Steve's face, and let him in, shaking his hand as he passed.  
"It's an honor, Cap. We owe you one. Welcome back."  
Steve gripped his hand in return, hoping that any smudges he'd picked up strap-hanging didn't transfer to the cop's white gloves. "Did my job, officer. Same as you. And thanks."  
He'd gotten three steps further on when he heard the cop's voice call out to him again, confusion evident.  
"Hey, Cap?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Ain't that a private's insignia? Thought you were a captain."  
Steve looked ruefully down at his arm. "Wouldn't you believe it," he said, "what with everything, the Army never did get around to actually promoting me."  
The cop roared with laughter, heedless of the disapproving looks from solemn passers-by. "I'd believe it, all right. Figures. Hey, you! Yeah, you! Sorry, buddy, you gotta stay over on this side of the cordon, VIPs and family members only past the line."  
"I'll let you do your job, officer. Be safe."  
"Thanks, Cap, you too. You on the list, sir? No? Then you're general public, an' you gotta hang out with the rest of 'em. Move it."

With a wave, Steve made his way up to the stage, where he could see Tony. Fortunately the man had forgone the Iron Man armor and instead was wearing a suit Steve was pretty sure cost more than the annual rent on his new Brooklyn apartment. He was staring down at some kind of device, but Pepper was on his arm, and waved him over.  
"Steve! How are you?"  
"Fine, Ms. Potts." he said. "Nice day for it, isn't it?"  
She rolled her eyes, smiling so he'd know she was teasing him. "Please, Steve. It's Pepper. _Ms. Potts_ makes me sound like the teapot in Beauty and the Beast."  
He smiled back at her. "Haven't seen it yet, Ms. Potts."  
"Oh, you'll love it. We'll have to fix that, won't we Tony. Tony! Put that away, you can work on it later."  
"Huh? But it's - oh, hey, Cap, when did you get here?"  
"Just now, act -"  
"Right, right, hey, Steve, you should meet the mayor. Mike! Mike, this is Captain America. Steve Rogers. Steve, Michael Bloomberg, he's running this thing, oh, hey, big screens going on, we should go sit down. You look weird in a normal uniform, by the way."

It took a while for the procession to reach them at the park. Steve recognized the route as the one that had been used for the ticker tape parade at the end of the war; it had been one of the first bits of footage SHIELD had shown him when he'd woken up from the ice. The crowds on the big screens that had been set up so that folks in the park could see the whole parade were huge and silent, arrayed in orderly rows - well, as orderly as crowds of civilians that size ever were - along the sidewalks. He guessed nine in ten of them were wearing black armbands. Good. It was odd, doing this, watching drummers and pipers playing on the screens, watching the police marching in their dress blues as though they were right there, and hearing the sound echoing off the buildings from far away and mixing with the cooing of the pigeons, who were taking advantage of the large crowd to grab fallen crumbs. Howard would have been the first to have any of this, he thought, and half-smiled at the idea of Howard taking the back off of a television and ripping the wiring out. He glanced to his right, past the mayor, at Howard's son, who had put the device - "tablet", Steve thought, and felt a little guilty for marvelling at the gadgets on a day like this one - away and was staring at one of the screen, right hand white-knuckled around Pepper's left, jaw muscles clenched. Pepper was bearing up well, stroking her thumb along Tony's gently. Howard would be proud, Steve thought. His son was a good man.

The drums and pipes grew louder and, cued by the sight of them entering the park, Steve stood to attention. The sound drowned out the pigeons and put an end to the murmuring of the crowd, who'd already been standing but made a collective effort to slouch a little less. Steve caught sight of a homemade "I New York" sign off towards the right. The procession came to a halt, and Steve took a deep breath, straightened his uniform, and approached the podium, drawing some pages from his breast pocket and nervously unfolding them.

It took a while for the applause to die down, and the blush was still on his cheeks when he started to speak.  
"My name's Steve Rogers. I guess you probably know me more as Captain America, but that's not so important right now. I'm here like you are, as a New Yorker who's grateful to a lot of heroes. I was honoured to witness the courage and compassion of the police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and ordinary citizens who did their utmost to protect their fellow human beings. I would be privileged to thank them in person, but far too many of them are not able to be here today." Nor were a lot of courageous, compassionate men and women he'd known. He'd looked up as many people as he could. A lot of them were in Arlington. "Their families, however, are.. On behalf of everyone, I'd like to express my thanks and condolences to the families of..."

_(cont) their planet. There cannot have been a dry eye in New York as Rogers read the list of names which will be engraved next year on a memorial sculpture to be sponsored by Stark Industries, as announced afterwards by owner Tony Stark and CEO Virginia Potts who were also in attendance. Other members of the Avengers were occupied elsewhere, said a spokeswoman."_


	2. Highway of diamonds

**_2. Saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it_**

"Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff."

"You get a load of the passenger in 16A, Jenny?" Bobbi whispered, settling into her jump seat and fastening her harness.

"Hm? No, I was helping that family with the three kids get settled in. His seat belt's on and he doesn't have headphones on, but that's about all I checked. Why?" It was a full plane. There's been a rash of cancellations from locals who'd decided they'd rather stay home and spend time with their families or help with the cleanup, or just assumed that the FAA would ground all the planes - to be honest, Bobbi was kind of surprised to be working today, just over a day since the hole in the sky had first opened over Manhattan, but Newark airport was undamaged. Weird. If she'd been an invading alien overlord, New Jersey would have been the first to go, she thought, taken aback at herself immediately after that. How could she think that? Ugh.

The cancellations had been balanced out by people who'd wanted to get out of the city, or had suddenly-urgent business in the EU. There were also a few people, Bobbi knew, that United had extended special courtesies to in order to get them onto the non-stop flight to Stuttgart - customers who'd lost family in the smaller, forgotten massacre that had taken place there before the invasion of New York.

Invasion of New York. It sounded like a bad movie. Everything sounded like a bad movie. "Invasion of New York". "Massacre in Stuttgart" (okay, that one was more of a novel. Movies never happened in Stuttgart). "Flying Aircraft Carrier", for crying out loud, and why hadn't there been any more news about that? She hadn't seen it herself, but the aviation gossip lines were humming with it. Flights had been diverted to Boston and Philadelphia, and people were stuck there sleeping in airports trying to find a way to get on a flight to wherever they'd been going in the first place. She'd heard from a buddy who worked the United customer service desk at Logan that a lot of Bostonians had offered couches, beds, and floorspace to stranded travellers. Be nice if the same thing was happening in Philly, but she hadn't heard on the news yet. The news was still focused on Manhattan, much as it had been eleven years ago, showing the kind of footage you couldn't tear your eyes from no matter how nauseous seeing buildings you'd known the shape of your whole life being torn apart made you feel. At least there was more variety. In 2001, she'd crowded into a jam-packed, eerily-silent student lounge and spent the afternoon watching the planes collide with the towers, over and over and over. She took a deep breath and focused her attention back on Jenny, who'd kept talking.

"... pretty good-looking, in a beat-up kind of way, don't you think? He looks tired, though. I had to wake him up for takeoff."

The big Pratt & Whitney turbofans were increasing in pitch, now, and she tuned Jenny out as the 757 accelerated down the runway. She liked this part, even facing backwards, liked the reassuring pressure of her harness, liked the sudden cessation of vibration as Jerry or Trish eased back and the plane nosed into the air, liked the tiny clunk of the wheels folding up that you only noticed if you were looking for it. It was normal. She liked having something normal.

Bobbi lost herself in her post-takeoff routine for a while, checking in on the family whose infant had started screaming a few minutes in, poor little thing. Sucking on a bottle had helped to equalize the pressure in its ear, and it was much happier now.

So were the passengers sitting next to it, one of whom was Jenny's handsome-but-tired passenger in 16A. He was, as advertised, pretty beat up. She spotted a bruise at his hairline, and he was sitting stiffly, twisted sideways in his seat as though to take pressure off his back. He looked exhausted and drawn, with sharp creases around his mouth and between his eyes. She'd never seen someone look so simultaneously sleepy and jumpy before; as she handed him the glass of water he'd asked for, his eyes were constantly moving. The woman in the seat next to his looked nervous.

He thanked her for the water, in a gravelly voice that sounded like he hadn't spoken for weeks, and paused, clearly debating with himself. Bobbi waited. "Could you," he cleared his throat, "could you pass me the orange bottle from the front pocket of the black and purple bag in the overhead compartment, please?" He winced. "Actually, maybe pass me the clear one, too. Eight-hour flight, right?"  
"Yes, sir. We've got a headwind, though, so it might be longer."  
"Faaaan-tastic. These should be good for seven hours, 's'far as the medics could tell me."  
Medics?  
"You're military, sir?"  
"Something like that."  
She passed him the pills, and he knocked them back, taking a swallow of the water. "You were _there_, weren't you," she said. There wasn't much question of what she meant by "there". He got quiet, and she rushed to apologize. "I'm sorry, sir, that's none of my business. I'll put these back - front pocket, right?"  
"Don't worry about it. And front pocket's fine. Might need a second pillow, if there are any going spare..."  
He was already fading, shoulders finally losing a bit of their tension, the lines around his mouth becoming less stark.

She caught her watch on one of the bag's other zippers while she was putting the medication back into the overhead bag, and froze. Bobbi wasn't military, or law enforcement, but she was an aviator in a post 9/11 world and she could spot a weapon case when she saw one, even if the sizing was a little weird for a rifle and too big for a handgun. 16A was jumpy as heck, not military but something like it, and those pills might not have been the painkiller and muscle relaxant the bottles' labels claimed them to be. 16A might just be a good actor. Airport security might have been distracted and overloaded what with everything. Hell, he might have had an accomplice. He did look like he was sleeping, though, and she'd seen a lot of sleeping people over the years. Well, shit.

She very carefully zipped the bag back up with the pills in the front pocket, just like she'd found it, closed the overhead bin, and made her way forwards. She hoped her poker face was good - her heart was pounding, and she nearly jumped out of her shoes when someone grabbed her sleeve as she was headed through first class. It turned out to be the weedy-looking guy in 3C.  
"I need a Scotch."  
"Of course, sir. Someone will be right with you."  
"Hurry up, girl, I'm thirsty - _ow_, what did you do that for, Carla?"  
"Be polite, dear. Sorry, miss. Just bring him a coffee, please, I think he's had enough to drink already, haven't you, Charles."  
The man grumbled. "Sure. Coffee, then. Honestly, Carla..."  
"Don't honestly me. I don't want to spend the next seven and a half hours with you snoring my ear off because you've had too much to drink. Thank you, miss, coffee will be fine. He takes two milks -"  
"Cream and sugar"  
" - two milks, no sugar."  
Bobbi smiled gratefully at the man's wife, and headed to the galley, where she found Jenny.

"Jenny, I need to check something with the cockpit. Can you get 3C a coffee, please? Milk only." Jenny looked at her with concern.  
"Sure, Bobbi. Everything okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.  
She picked up the phone to the cockpit.  
"Jerry, Trish, it's Bobbi. Can I come in for a moment?"  
"Sure. Everything okay?"  
"I... I'm not sure. I'll tell you in a minute."

The cockpit door clicked open, and she slipped inside, closing the door quickly behind her and leaning against it. Out of the front windows, the sky was darkening, shading from blue into indigo. Sit. She needed to sit. She slumped into the vacant flight engineer's seat and clasped her trembling hands together.  
"There's a passenger in 16A. He says he's not military, but he sure looks it. I think he might have a gun."  
Jerry nodded.  
"Yeah," he said. "Not a gun, though, some weird high-tech bow."  
"What?" Her voice rose an octave and cracked. Wincing, she brought it back down. "I mean, what? You _knew_ about this?"  
"Sure. Some government LEO, name of... Barton, I think. He has air marshal qualifications, apparently needs his weapon as soon as he hits the ground. Special dispensation. He's okay under title 49. What, you weren't briefed?"  
"Do I _look_ like I was briefed? Do I _sound_ like I knew some guy was bringing a weapon into my cabin? No. No, I wasn't briefed."  
"Geez, Bobbi. I'm sorry, I should have double-checked. Please don't kill me, I have to fly the plane."  
"You're Trish's backup. She can fly the plane." Bobbi turned the full force of her glare on Trish, who was doing an excellent impersonation of an invisible ninja pilot who wasn't part of the conversation, and ground out, "not that she told me either. Did either of you tell Jenny? Or the rest of the crew? Because I sure didn't."  
"I'm sorry," said Trish contritely. "So's Jerry. Right, Jerry?"  
"Yes! Yes I am. Very sorry."  
"We should have checked with you to confirm, but, well, it's been a crazy couple of days. I was focused on mechanical checklists and it slipped my mind."  
Bobbi softened a bit. "It has been crazy. Don't think for a moment that I won't get revenge in Germany, though. I know where you'll be sleeping, and I will pounce. When you least expect it. I'm tougher than I look, you know."  
"Suuuure. Under that pretty blonde exterior you're secretly a super-soldier like that Captain America guy, Richards or whatever his name is."  
"Rogers. And that's right, Jerry. I will end you. I'm going to go let the other stews know about 16A. Fly the plane or something. Don't you have buttons to push?"

The rest of the flight was mostly uneventful. The infant sucked happily at its bottle, having become much more cheerful as the pressure inside its ears equalized and they stopped hurting, then fell asleep. Bobbi located the passengers who were travelling on compassionate tickets to attend the funeral service in Stuttgart, and poured them glasses of wine. "Compliments of the airline," she told them. It didn't seem like enough. It was something, though.

The sky outside darkened, and she took the opportunity, as she always did, to peek out of a window. She liked the overnight flights – there was always something serene about the starry skies over the Atlantic. Not that she could see the Atlantic – today was an overcast day, and there was a layer of clouds reflecting the starlight and moonlight back up at her. She'd seen ATC charts and knew that the sky was actually pretty crowded, usually, but it still looked big and empty, even with the wing lights that joined the stars in sparkling off in the distance.

Meal service finished, the cabin lights were dimmed and most of the passengers were conked out, including 3C who was snoring on his wife's shoulder. His wife rolled her eyes at Bobbi as if to say "what are you going to do?", then turned back to her e-reader. After doing one more cabin walk-through, Bobbi returned to the galley and closed the curtain to attempt to concentrate on the sudoku book her mother had given her for Christmas..

Landing did not go as smoothly as the rest of the flight.  
"Sir? Sir, we're landing. I need you to wake up now."  
There was no response from Mr. Barton in 16A. The angle he was twisted at didn't look comfortable, either, despite the airline pillow crushed between his head and the wall. Bobbi tried again.  
"Mr. Barton?"  
Still nothing. She reached out and touched his shoulder gently... then nearly fell into the lap of the woman in 16B as Mr. Barton grabbed her wrist and yanked, bringing them face to face, with only a quick grab of a seat back with her left hand preventing her from toppling over entirely. His eyes were wide and he was panting against her cheek.  
Military. He was military. Or something. He was tired, he was hurt, and she'd touched him without his knowledge. She should have known better. At least his weapon was safely out of reach in the overhead compartment.  
16B was looking at her in horror. Bobbi did her best to silently convey "look, it's all right, I've got this under control, feel free to carry on with your book, sorry about all this" with a twist of mouth and eyebrow, then turned her attention back to Barton.  
"Mr. Barton? Look at me, Mr. Barton. My name's Bobbi. You're on a plane. You're all right."  
His fingers loosened around her wrist a little - she winced internally at the thought of the bruises she'd have later - and his eyes focused on her face.  
"I - I don't - what?"  
"You're all right. You're on an airplane. We're landing in Stuttgart soon, and I couldn't wake you, so I touched your shoulder. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."  
His gaze moved to his hand, still gripping her wrist, and he let go as suddenly as if he'd been burned, scrubbing his face. She straightened up and rubbed her arm, trying to restore circulation to her hand. He looked stricken.  
"I'm sorry. Did I - I didn't?."  
She was unsettled, but he was a passenger on her aircraft, and he needed reassuring. "It's all right, sir. You just woke up, and I'm fine. Just a little startled, and I think that probably applies to both of us. Would you like some water? Do you need anything?"  
"No, no, I'm fine, I'll be fine... actually, come to think of it, you have a mirror?"  
Bobbi was confused. "A mirror?"  
"Yeah. Nothing big, just one of those little round ones women carry. Have one of those?"  
She dug her compact out of her jacket pocket and passed it to him. He grabbed it out of her grip and opened it, frantically examining his reflection, holding it close to one eye, then the other, searching for something. Bobbi wasn't sure if he found what he was looking for or not, but he slumped back into his seat, satisfied with whatever result he'd obtained, and held her mirror out so she could retrieve it. She took it gently, being careful not to touch his fingers as she did so, and stowed it back into her pocket, smiling in what she hoped was a cool, collected, reassuring and professional manner at both Barton and the poor woman sitting next to him, who was sitting ramrod-straight and staring fixedly at the back of the seat in front of her.  
"We're landing now, sir, ma'am. Please make sure to keep your seatbelts fastened, and electronics turned off. Thank you."

Everyone else she checked on was either already awake or responded easily to her prompting, much to her relief, and the landing went smoothly. As she stood by the exit into the jetway and bid every passenger goodbye, she was planning the drinks she planned on ordering in the hotel bar and thanking her lucky stars she had a long layover in Stuttgart. A good sleep was probably in order, too. Maybe a massage. Definitely some ice for her wrist.

That'd have to take second priority, though. She had something she wanted to do tomorrow.


	3. Ten thousand whisperin'

**_3. Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'_**

There was no public funeral for SHIELD's dead. Officially, there'd been no public confirmation that there were any SHIELD casualties, or even that SHIELD was an existing agency. The Helicarrier floated a couple of hundred nautical miles offshore while mechanics performed what repairs were possible without a drydock; flight had been deemed inadvisable, or, in the words of Stark, "a fuckin' stupid idea, Patches, I won't be around if anything goes wrong this time and that one turbine is held together with spit and glue right now. You never struck me as a moron before, don't let your badassery override your brain."

Stark's particular idiom aside, Maria Hill was in complete agreement. Even now, with coffins draped in flags lined up in two orderly rows of eight at the end of the number two runway, she could spy the bright sparks of metal being welded out of the corner of her eye.

A corner of one of the flags had come unpinned and was flapping in the wind. She crossed over to it, boot heels ringing crisply on the deck, and crouched down, tenderly smoothing the flag back into the regulation sharp crease and pinning it back into place. Most of the casualties had been shipped back to their families, but these sixteen either had none - not uncommon for SHIELD agents, a lot of people with families tended to reconsider when they heard what the job involved - or had chosen not to fill in the next-of-kin line on their paperwork. It didn't matter, anyway. SHIELD took care of its own.

She knew this one. He'd been one of hers, a bright young thing specializing in Logistics. He'd had a knack for scrounging things up from out of nowhere, anything that was needed, sometimes even before she'd asked him for it. The rest of the department, M*A*S*H fans to the bone, had nicknamed him Radar. He had nothing else in common with the character - he'd been darkly handsome, independent, and he'd died bravely, she'd heard, shot by one of Loki's men as he tried to keep them from the bridge.

Bravely. Like that mattered. Everyone died bravely in the letters she'd been up all night writing to next-of-kin. Bravely, quickly, and with no pain. Never mind that Annie Callahan had bled out from her femoral artery, screaming; never mind that Yves Geoffrion, who'd taken one of Barton's arrows to the gut and a bullet to the chest, had sobbed bubblingly and called Maria "_maman_" just before he stopped breathing. The letters were about comfort, not about truth. It wasn't far from the truth, anyway. They'd all been brave. They'd all been _hers_. She patted Radar's coffin as she straightened and made her way back towards the end of the runway, where Colonel Fury was waiting, snapping a salute as she got there.

"Hell of a thing," he said, pensively.  
"Hell of a thing, yes sir."

She'd said all she needed to say in the letters she'd written to their families; she'd even written letters about the ones like Radar, who'd had SHIELD - who'd had her - as their only family. It made her feel better to know there was a record of their deaths, of who they'd been, in a drawer somewhere, in case she ever found someone who wanted to know. Maybe she'd write a book about them all, if the operation was ever declassified and she lived to retire. As it was, she was glad the Colonel was giving the eulogy. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to. Maria Hill, Ice Queen of SHIELD, sure - if she hadn't been able to keep track of scuttlebutt, she'd have made a lousy excuse for a SHIELD agent - but she was human after all, and, unlike Fury, she'd worked closely with these people.

The coffins slipped, one by one, out from under their flags and into the sea, like so many before them. The splashes seemed awfully loud. The splashes seemed awfully muted. The splashes were awful, and she held her salute's perfect form and forced herself not to look away as the last coffin vanished from sight.

A roar caught her attention, and she looked up to see the Helicarrier's jet contingent rip through the air, and finally, as one peeled off to leave a hole in the formation, she let herself close her eyes a moment. She'd berated herself once for letting something as simple as the missing man formation affect her so much - after all, she'd seen it plenty of times, at funerals and at memorial events she should be inured to it - but with time she'd come to be grateful for her reaction. If she ever stopped reacting, she'd step down from command.

There was a wake being held in the mess below decks, and she was raising her second glass to her lips when she overheard a whisper she didn't like very much.  
" - nowhere to be seen."  
"Doesn't mean he wasn't here, this is Barton we're talking about."  
"Yeah, but Romanov's not around, either."  
A third voice joined the first two, low and bitter. "Of course not. He knows better than to show his face around here after what he did."  
"He might be a traitor, but he's not dumb enough to disrespect the dead. I met him a couple of times before he joined SHIELD, he always did it clean."

By this time, Maria had come up behind the third guy - Nguyen, his name ribbon read, not one of hers, and a good thing for him too. She cleared her throat.

All three agents jumped, guiltily, and came quickly to attention as they matched name to face. She noted with satisfaction that the second speaker had even gone a sickly shade of puce. _Ice Queen of SHIELD_, she reminded herself, and injected all of that ice into her voice.  
"It's good of you to be concerned about the absence of your fellow agents, Nguyen, Jones, and... Martin, isn't it? Under Sitwell's command, if I remember correctly?"  
She had to hand it to Martin. The woman had enough courage to meet Maria's glare head-on. "Martin, under Sitwell, yes ma'am. Ma'am, we're not concerned. And Barton's hardly a fellow agent anymore. I don't care if he was compromised, you die before you betray your own."  
Courage apparently didn't indicate intelligence. She spotted Nguyen wincing almost imperceptibly.  
"As I understand it," she said, every syllable perfectly clipped, "he was not given that option at any point. Have you ever been on a mission with Barton, Martin? No? Nguyen, Jones? Neither of you?"  
She leaned in, and they took a step back. "Pity. If you had, you would know that Barton does not place his own life above those of his fellow agents. Colonel Fury and I both owe him our lives, as do several other agents currently in this room, and you are all _damn_ lucky that I'm the one who overheard your conversation. You can tell by the way your noses are still three-dimensional."  
The goldfish impression they were all doing put her in the most cheerful mood she'd been in since Loki had crashed the research facility.  
"I'll speak with Agent Sitwell in the morning. I suggest you all return to quarters and pack. Loyalty aside, you've all shown an appalling lack of judgement."  
"Ma'am?"  
"Yes, Jones? What is it?"  
"Where are Barton and Romanov? I'm actually surprised they're not here." Thank goodness. One of them wasn't a complete loss. She'd tell Jasper to go easy on this one.  
"They had personal business elsewhere, Agent. It's up to them whether they want to tell you what it is when they get back... I notice you're all still here. I suggest you change that."

They scattered. Someone yelled, "to our lost! May they live forever!", and Maria shouted the traditional response - "May we we never die!" - and drained her glass in one gulp. Wiping her mouth on the back of her black dress glove, she headed to the bar for another. It was a good night for whisky.


	4. Mouth of a Graveyard

**__**A/N: Thank you very much for the reviews, follows, and favourites - they absolutely make my day. I hope you continue to enjoy this.

**_4. I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard._**

It was a clear night. The stars weren't overly visible except for Arcturus, and he was pretty sure that was Jupiter over there – too high up for Venus, but it might have been Saturn – but the square itself was practically glowing, despite the uneven light cast by the intermittently broken streetlamps. Funny. He didn't remember the streetlamps being broken. It must have happened after he bugged out.

Broken streetlamps aside, Stuttgart was really pretty. He'd have liked to come here as a tourist. Not anymore, though.

Shit, but his back hurt. He wondered if he could get R&D to build an airbag or something into his quiver. Probably not. He tugged at the collar of his shirt again, making sure that it was high enough to cover up the bruising he'd gotten when he'd landed after going through the window.  
_What were you thinking, Barton? You've had a lot of dumb ideas, but that was one for the top-ten list. _

He used to like imagining Coulson's wry remarks. Now the voice in his head - even though he knew it was harmless, even though Medical had cleared him, even though there hadn't been so much as a hint of electric blue in the reflection on the plane - made him cringe. Which pulled at the muscles in his back, which made him cringe even more. Ow.

He should have brought a candle. Or flowers. Everyone else had a candle, or flowers, or a poster or something. The square was full of them. It was probably a fire hazard. Or was it, everything here was made of stone, wasn't it? Stone didn't burn. He looked around at the buildings. Sure looked like stone, but he wasn't an architect. The lighting was nice, the way it highlighted the buildings. The candles were pretty, too.

All this wasn't helping him with what he'd come for. He forced himself to look down, the muscles along his shoulders and neck screaming at him. He could have taken one of the analgesics in the backpack he'd stashed his bow and emergency quiver in so that he'd look like an ordinary tourist, but he wanted to be fully alert for this. It was important that he know their faces.

At his feet, among the bouquets of flowers - and how dumb was that, they'd only die off fast, without water, though maybe that was appropriate, a square full of flowers dead before their time, _shut UP, Barton, you're a soldier, not a poet or a philosopher, do what you came here to do_ - and the candles, there were photographs, with names. He picked one up. He didn't speak any German, but the name was pretty clear, as were the dates. Florian Bauer. Born 1990. 22 years old, fuck. He stared at the photo, committing it to memory. Another – Dominik Hannerman. Born 1972. There was a kid in the picture with Dominik Hanneman, same brown eyes and blond hair. He clenched his teeth. Seemed like the least he could do was learn their faces and names. Seemed like the least he could do was remember. His German wasn't good enough to read the handwritten letters appended to the photographs, but he knew what they said, in broad strokes. _Sweetheart, my darling, buddy, my son, daddy. I love you. I miss you. _

"Did you know him?"

Clint jumped. He must be more tired than he thought, for someone to sneak up on him like that. From in front, even – he'd seen her coming, but not even registered her face. The flight attendant. What was her name? Had he asked her name?  
"Huh?" he said, intelligently.  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Er, again." The flight attendant nodded at the photo he held in his hand. "You were looking at that like he was important to you."

She'd told him her name on the plane. Why couldn't he remember it? He remembered everything. He had to remember everything. Details were important.  
"No, miss..."  
"Bobbi."  
"Bobbi. I'm sorry, I know you told me before."  
She looked at him searchingly. He hated that look. Pity was better than the suspicion and resentment he'd get back on the helicarrier, though. If they let him come back. He wouldn't let such a security risk on board.  
"You were pretty tired, Mr. Barton. It's okay. So, who was he?"  
"Dominik Hanneman, it says here. I didn't know him. We met through his work, sort of. Listen, miss, I'm real sorry about the plane. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."  
There was a woman crying three feet away. He wished he could tune her out. He didn't let himself. It was important.  
"It's really all right. Honest. I've got a cousin who was in Iraq and came back jumpy – I should have known better. You weren't feeling quite yourself."  
He laughed at that, a short bitter "ha!" that earned him glares and shushes from several people in the crowd. "Oh, I was myself all right," he said. "I checked. And anyway..." he trailed off. What was he going to say? That he'd rather have taken her down while himself than left her along while he wasn't? The worst part was that it was true. All these photographs, all these men, all these _boys_, and he was only now learning their names and faces. He always knew who he was taking down. He always had files, dossiers, Coulson on the other end of the radio talking him through it. Coulson's voice, calming him.

Better a voice in his ear calming him down than one in his head stopping him from being anything _but_ calm. It had been like shooting paper targets, bulls-eye, bulls-eye, bulls-eye, perfect score. Give the big winner a stuffed bear.  
"Anyway what?" prompted Bobbi.  
"Nothing. Just had a thought. Why're you here, anyway? I'd have figured you'd have been tucked up in a hotel, resting up for work tomorrow. Don't you have to fly back home?"  
She shrugged. _She's kind of pretty_, he thought, then squashed that thought firmly. He couldn't do that, not when he didn't know he was safe. He'd never forgive himself if that suffocating calm came back over him and he hurt a woman, let alone one who'd been nice to him. She was tough – he'd felt hard muscle when he grabbed her arm – but he was tougher and had a couple of inches, forty pounds, and years of training on her. She wouldn't have a chance if he fell back into that suffocating, analytical calm.  
"I'm not flying back for a couple of days. The airline schedules to and from New York are all screwed up, and I was due for some vacation time anyway. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do here. Looks like they're pretty on top of things, though."  
"Wasn't a lot of damage here like Manhattan."  
"No giant aliens?"  
"Nah. Just the one crazy guy." Just. Like it was no big deal. He was holding on well.  
"I heard Iron Man took him down."  
"That right?"  
"Yeah. You didn't see the news reports, before they were all taken over with the Invasion of New York?" He could hear the capital letters. He'd been in the middle of – he'd _caused _- something that was being referred to with capital letters. Fuck.  
"I was busy."  
"What kind of busy were you to not see that? It was on every television and radio station. You couldn't so much as walk past a sports bar without hearing AC/DC."  
"I was just busy, all right?!" She took a step back at the heat in his voice, and he suddenly felt even more tired, burned by the fright in her eyes. She was afraid of him, and he couldn't blame her. He'd given her enough reasons, after all. Unable to meet her gaze, he dropped his eyes to the photo of Dominik Hanneman still gripped in his left hand. He'd creased it. A line ran right across Hanneman's smiling face. He bent to put it back down amongst the carnations where he'd found it, and hissed as pain twisted across the muscles of his back. No more crash landings. They weren't good for him. With an effort, he straightened back up. Bobbi was still eyeing him, but her expression had changed from fear to concern.  
"Have you taken anything since the stuff I got for you on the flight?"  
He almost shrugged guiltily, but the twinge in his shoulders made him think better of it. "Nope."  
"Do you have them on you? You look like you could use them."  
"I hate them. They make my head all fuzzy." They messed with his memory, and he needed to remember every name, every face. He needed to be alert, so he could turn himself in if he felt himself slipping. Natasha had given him a phone that had her number programmed in on speed-dial.  
"Well, then, look. Let me walk you back to wherever it is you're staying, at least. You look like you're about to keel over."  
He needed to know the names. "I can't. I have to, to." He gestured helplessly around the square, at the pile of flowers and photographs and letters and cards piled up by the opera house, at the grieving people. Bobbi captured his flailing hands and brought them down between them, holding them tight between her own.  
"Mr. Barton,"  
"Clint, my name's Clint." Names. Names were important.  
"Clint, look at me." He looked. Her eyes were dark blue, safe blue. There was a crease between them, and a dusting of freckles across her nose, and an eyelash on her cheek. Details were important, he had to remember. "Clint. You're covering it well, but you're exhausted. I don't know what-all you've been doing, but all this? This will be here tomorrow. How long have you been here?"  
Good question. He wasn't sure. "When did the plane land?"  
"Good grief, the whole time? No wonder. Did you eat anything?"  
"Um..." Had he? He couldn't remember. He'd had food on the plane, hadn't he? Or had he slept the whole time?  
"Okay. Here's what is going to happen. We are going to find someplace that serves food, and then I will take you back to where you are staying – where are you staying?"  
"Everywhere was booked," he lied. He hadn't had the balls to look anyone in the face, including hotel front desk clerks.  
"Right. Okay, then. I will take you back to where I am staying, and you'll take your meds. They put me in a room with two beds for some reason. You can have one."  
"I can't..." he said, alarmed. "I'll be drugged, I might -"  
"What? Oh, please. You can barely stand up, and I nearly made the Olympic tae kwon do team. Besides, I saw what those drugs do to you, they knocked you right out on the plane." She relented. "Fine. If it'll make you sleep better, I'll bunk in with Jenny next door. She won't mind. I'll tell her there was some kind of room mixup."

While they were talking, she'd manoeuvred him to the edge of the crowd. She was good. Or maybe he was just tired? No, she was good. She'd make a good asset, he thought. The flight attendant gig would be a good cover. He should tell Phil about her. He'd want to... right. No telling Phil. Not ever. He balked at the idea of letting her make the decisions, but... she was right. And he was tired.  
He should get her full name anyway, though. Maybe give it to Hill.  
"Fine. But at least tell me what Bobbi is short for."  
"Barbara," she said, screwing up her nose. "Barbara Morse. But if you ever call me Barbara, then the next time I find you wandering around a strange city like a lost puppy, I will just leave you to it."  
"That's fair," he said, and followed her.


	5. The people are many

**_5. Where the people are many and their hands are all empty._**

Maria Hill had not been lying. Natasha was indeed elsewhere, on personal business. She'd been several elsewheres, in fact, but right now she was standing under a tree in a huge backyard in rural Massachusetts, feeling decidedly out of place as an endless procession of neighbours streamed by carrying an endless supply of casserole and Tupperware. This wasn't where she belonged, here with the perfect lawn and the family all touching each other's arms and smiling at each other through tears as they told stories of a man none of them really knew. They'd never depended on Coulson like she had, never needed him. She envied them. They all had more family; she'd just stood unobtrusively at the back of a crowd and buried half of hers.

"Who are you?"  
She looked down to find a small girl, about twelve, dressed in black like nearly everyone else. It seemed odd to think of a girl that age as a child. When she'd been twelve, she'd been... well, she certainly hadn't been going to family funerals or post-funeral receptions. She'd been causing them.  
"I'm Natasha."  
"Oh. I'm Claudia." The girl chewed at her lip, and Natasha held back a comment about how a woman's lips could be used as tools to get into places, and the girl should take care of them. Claudia was a schoolchild. Time enough for seduction later. "Did you know Uncle Phil? I haven't seen you before."  
"We... we worked together."  
"In the FBI?"

Phil had opted for the FBI as a plausible cover that had some things in common with the truth. Natasha had helped him to work out the details. They'd drunk a lot of coffee that week. Clint had gotten bored by day two and headed down to R&D to find out if they could figure out some way to work a garotte into Coulson's ties.

"Yes."  
"Were you an... ana... analyst, too? I want to be an analyst when I grow up."  
"No."  
"You don't talk a lot, do you?"  
Natasha's mouth quirked. "No."  
"Are you teasing me?"  
"No."  
Claudia looked sceptical. "Really?"  
"No."  
The kid was looking frustrated, and Natasha didn't feel like talking with anyone else, especially not the Coulson matriarch currently surrounded by people who all looked vaguely like Phil, so she took pity on her.  
"I've answered everything you asked. An analyst has to learn to ask the right questions."  
"Oh." Claudia pondered this information. "What kind of work did you do with Uncle Phil?"  
"That's much better. I'm what's called a field agent."  
"That means you catch the bad guys."  
"Yes."  
"Cool. Did Uncle Phil help?"  
"Yes."  
"Oh! Um. Like, how did Uncle Phil help?"

Coulson when she was brand new, in from the cold, looking at her and sighing that she'd better be worth Barton's ass. Coulson sticking up for her a week later while Fury did his best to glare holes into her skull and she focused on stopping her knees from trembling, because this was her best hope, this was her last chance to be a real person. Coulson taking her to the movies so she'd learn to be around people again. Coulson's voice in her ear, letting her know that there were bogeys surrounding the building and that she'd be better off taking the stairs up to the roof rather than trying to exit at ground-level. Coulson's hands putting pressure on her abdomen, Coulson's voice yelling into his radio for an evac _now_, damnit, and a rescue squad for Barton, and get someone who spoke Hungarian to get in touch with the nearest military base hospital and tell them to prepare for a trauma. Coulson teaching her to make scrambled eggs after he discovered she'd been living on MREs and takeout.

She sat down on the offensively well-manicured lawn and pulled off her sensible black pumps. Claudia took the hint and sat down next to her.

"Your Uncle Phil was very good at what he did. He always found out exactly what my partner and I would need to do our jobs. Sometimes, if someone else was in charge of getting us intel - information - he'd double-check it and yell at them if they'd missed something. My partner and I -"  
"Is your partner that Clint guy? I met him once. He was really good at juggling. Mom got mad when he used her good kitchen knives."  
"Yes, Clint. Clint and I are both very hard workers, and Coulson liked to make sure we weren't working too hard. One time, after we'd been away from home for a month -"  
"A whole _month_?"  
"Yes, a whole month." It had been hot, and sweaty, weeks spent up in a hide in a tree in Colombia with long-range microphones pointed at a shack where scopalamine was being traded, hoping to get intel on the guy who'd been shipping it to Europe in exchange for weapons in Ukraine. They'd come home with nothing but mosquito bites and an intense hatred of howler monkeys. Clint had come down with some kind of food poisoning just before they'd pulled out, and that had been intensely unpleasant for all concerned. She looked up to discover that she'd gained more of an audience, ranging from more kids sitting on the grass in a semicircle to Mrs. Coulson herself. "Sometimes field agents have to spend a long time away from home, even longer than a month. We got home and your Uncle Phil took us out for ice cream." He had once Clint had been able to keep food down, anyway, and once sickbay had declared him adequately re-hydrated. "He said we'd earned it."  
"Uncle Phil always took us out for ice cream when he came to visit."  
"Did he make you get mint-chocolate-chip?"  
Claudia giggled. "Yeah. It's his favourite."  
"Mine too."  
"Did he make you watch _The Lion King _all the time?"  
"He always said we should, but we didn't get around to it. Work kept us pretty busy."  
She found a few more anecdotes she could strip down to a state of harmlessness, and was surprised when Claudia, summoned by her mother, gave her a hug. She wrapped her arms stiffly around the girl for a moment, and watched her leave, flummoxed. The rest of the crowd took that as a cue to disperse, except for Mrs. Coulson.  
"Come and help me put some of this food away, dear."  
"I - I don't know if I should intrude, maybe I should go."  
"Nonsense. Phil would have words with you if you left his mother all alone to take care of all this by herself." Mrs. Coulson's voice was strained, and Natasha, becoming a spy for a moment rather than the agent who wasn't sure how to blend in when she was only being herself, heard what Phil's mother was saying, which was _don't leave me alone, I don't want to be alone right now, and you knew my son._  
"All right."  
The two women worked quietly together for a while, transferring half-eaten food into smaller Tupperware containers and hunting among the debris on the trestle tables for the appropriate lids. Mrs. Coulson wielded masking tape and a marker with great skill, labelling each container with the name of the person to whom it belonged. No wonder Coulson had been such a good agent. He clearly came by his observational skills and memory for detail naturally. Natasha couldn't tell one container from another.  
"My son was not just an analyst, was he." It wasn't a question.  
"No. He wasn't."  
"And you're not FBI."  
"No."  
"I didn't think so. My late husband - Phil's father - was FBI, you know. Did Phil tell you that? He worked white collar crime. I didn't want to tell Phil that I knew he was lying. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't have a good reason."  
Her hands, so capable a few minutes before, so deft at wielding tupperware lids, fluttered about like birds. Natasha caught them in her own, and squeezed gently. Coulson had taught her about comfort. She'd learned by watching.  
"How long have you known?"  
"Oh. A few years. He was telling a story from work at Christmas, and I recognized it from before George - that's my husband - from before George retired, with a few details changed. Coulsons are good at listening for details, you know."  
"I know."  
"Was Phil even an analyst? I always thought, even if he couldn't tell me who he worked for, at least he was at a desk job at last after leaving the Army, at least he was... at least he was... was s-safe." There were tears running down the older woman's cheeks now, and Natasha looked around for help, but the backyard was empty, the horde of Coulsons and Coulsons-in-law having sensed that this was a private conversation. She settled for patting Mrs. Coulson's hand.  
"He... he kept me safe, Mrs. Coulson. Me and my partner."  
"Your partner," Mrs. Coulson heaved a deep, shuddering breath. "That's that Clint boy, right? Phil brought him here for Thanksgiving one year, said he didn't have anywhere else to go. He was a sweetheart."  
"Sweetheart" was not the word Natasha would have used to describe Clint, but then, she wouldn't have described anyone she knew that way.  
"He didn't. Have anywhere to go, I mean. Neither did I. Phil had us over to his apartment last year for turkey. It was... nice."  
"That sounds like my boy."  
"He didn't only look after us in the field, Mrs. Coulson."  
"You... you'll come here this year, I hope? You and Clint?"  
"I -" this was not something Natasha had pictured happening. She hadn't prepped for this. What was the appropriate response? "I'm not sure if I should - it's a family event, and I wouldn't want to -"  
"You're Phil's family, dear. That makes you mine, too, even if we've just met. He can't look after you, so we will." Mrs. Coulson smiled tremulously up at Natasha, who was frozen in place. "That's how family works. Didn't you know?"  
"No. I. Not really."  
"Well, it is. Come inside. Let's get this food into the freezer. I'll make up the spare bed for you."


	6. Where have you been?

**_6. Where have you been, my blue-eyed son?_**

"Doctor Banner?" Bruce blinked at the screenful of data he'd been staring at. Three weeks, and he still wasn't entirely used to JARVIS's omnipresence. He'd gotten over jumping every time a disembodied voice addressed him from out of nowhere, at least. That was something. Being startled wasn't really on his list of healthy, calming activities.  
"Yes, JARVIS?"  
"You asked to be notified when the grocery delivery had arrived, sir."  
"Oh, right." He checked the readout at the bottom of his screen. Ten past five already? Really? Huh. That one experiment _had_been running a while...and he was definitely hungry. Tony might be able to survive for days without food, but Bruce preferred to pretend he wasn't superhuman. He grinned wryly as he considered that Tony mostly preferred to pretend he was. Food time, definitely. He checked everything he had currently going. What couldn't be paused could be left to keep going unattended for a few hours, so he set the computers to number-crunching and statistical analysis. One definite perk to having his own dedicated Stark lab was the analytical software, which could spot patterns that weren't strictly numerical. If he hadn't met JARVIS, he'd have said it was impossible for mere software to have hunches, but he was reformulating that opinion in the face of contradictory evidence.

He locked the lab down – it might be able to be left unattended, but that didn't mean he wanted anyone inadvertently messing with it – and headed upstairs to what Stark called "Avengertopia" and everyone else referred to as "the common area". Everyone else consisted of himself, for the most part, though Natasha had arrived a few days ago and was beginning to venture into the public spaces, and Rogers seemed to alternate between the tower and some tiny apartment in Brooklyn. Stark had included living quarters for several other people in his redesign, though, and one of the places currently taking shape in a subbasement had a suspicious resemblance to an archery range.  
Shocking, really, how quickly the remodelling of several floors of a skyscraper had progressed, but Stark had the money and resources to command several construction crews around the clock. They'd swarmed the place like termites building a mound. Bruce had felt vaguely guilty.  
He arrived in the state-of-the-art kitchen to be greeted by the refrigerator. That was new. Tony had been tinkering again. The man was determined to have everything perfect – he'd poured money into rebuilding Manhattan, starting with the local Middle Eastern restaurants. There had been a more than a few references to "better, stronger than before", though thankfully Pepper had talked him into only saying that in private.  
"Hi, Dr. Banner!"  
"Hi... sorry, what was your name?"  
"Coolio, Dr. Banner!"  
"Er... nice to meet you, Coolio."  
"Nice to meet you too! Here's what I've got..."  
Bruce suffered through an appallingly cheerful list of the fridge's contents. Butter chicken seemed like a good bet. Hopefully nobody would tease him about liking fake Indian food as much as real Indian food. He opened a cupboard, expecting to find a chopping board, and was disappointed when the cupboard turned out to contain a truly prodigious quantity of protein bars.  
"Coolio, where are the chopping boards?"  
"Bottom cupboards, second from the left, Dr. Banner!" chirped the refrigerator.  
"Thanks."  
"Happy to be of service!"

Dicing chicken breasts had never been quite so soothing before.

Unusually, the smell attracted all four of his motley housemates. Steve, in Manhattan today, followed his nose in and sat down at the counter that separated the kitchen from the more formal dining room, hooking his feet into the bar stool footrests. His hair was still damp from a shower. Natasha was next, and she set about finding out where the cutlery had moved to ("Middle set of drawers, top drawer, Miss Romanov! My pleasure! No need to thank me!" "I didn't." "No problem!") and setting places on the long counter. Tony and Pepper arrived just as Bruce was ladling the chicken over rice into bowls and setting them out. They were about to take their first bites when JARVIS interrupted.  
"I beg your pardon sirs, ma'ams. Agent Barton has just entered the premises, and I have a standing instruction to inform any of you who are here when that happens."  
Natasha made a noise and was gone, leaving behind a spinning bar stool and gently steaming bowl of butter chicken.  
"Did she just teleport?" Tony asked the air where she'd been. "Because I've been working on that for years, and I'm pretty sure Bruce has at least looked into it, and the best anyone's been able to do so far is make a photon jump. We could totally patent that."  
"I'll start drawing up the paperwork," murmured Pepper through a mouthful of chicken. "This is really good, Bruce."  
Bruce took a bite. It wasn't bad at all, if he did say so himself. Steve was eyeing his plate mournfully, clearly hungry, but unwilling to eat if they were waiting for someone. Pepper clearly noticed as well. "It's all right, Steve. Go ahead and start – Natasha won't mind, and from what she's told me, Agent Barton won't either."  
Natasha had talked about Agent Barton to Pepper? That was something. She was hardly an open book. Pepper _was_ easy to talk to, though, he'd found, and Natasha was still a little wary of him.  
JARVIS chimed in again. "Sirs, ma'am, Agents Barton and Romanov are in the elevator. They should reach this floor in twenty-six seconds, on my mark. Mark."  
How on Earth had Natasha reached the ground floor that quickly? On second thought, Bruce decided, maybe he didn't want to know after all. He'd go with Tony's teleportation hypothesis for now.

There was a muted ping from down the hall, right on time, and a few minutes later Agent Barton appeared in the doorway. He looked... better than he had the last time Bruce had seen him, when he'd been concealing bruised eyes under sunglasses and bruised muscles under several layers of clothing and painkillers. Still tired, but according to the tracking information Tony had "borrowed" from the SHIELD mainframe, he'd been travelling a lot.  
"So, I know that what with everything, proper introductions didn't really happen." His mouth tightened a bit, and Natasha stepped up beside him, a clear indication that she was on his wing and on his side. He scrubbed his hand across the back of his head.  
"I'm Hawkeye. Agent Barton. You can all call me Clint, though."  
None of them were quite sure what to do. It figured, thought Bruce, that when he met the last of his teammates properly for the first time, he'd be wearing a pink apron with the outline of an improbably curvy naked torso on it. Tony's choice, of course. It fit well, so he'd kept it. The silence was finally broken by Steve, who vaulted the counter and strode towards Clint, who looked, to Bruce's practiced eye, as though he wanted to bolt.  
Steve stuck out a hand and said, genially, "Welcome home, Clint. It's nice to meet you."  
Agent Barton's – Clint's – shoulders relaxed slightly, and Bruce was sure he caught the hint of a smile on Natasha's face as Clint reached out and shook Steve's proffered hand.  
"Thanks, Cap. Nice to meet you, too." The look on his face was bemused as he gazed around, taking in the faces smiling at him, the shining kitchen, the view out of the window. "Home, huh."  
"For as long as you want it," said Tony, uncharacteristically quietly.  
"Well, how about that." Clint finally smiled, and Bruce was startled at how much younger he suddenly looked. "Thanks. It's good to be home."

A/N: And that's it! Thank you very much to those of you who've read the whole thing, particularly those of you who've taken the time to let me know your thoughts on it. I really appreciate it. If you're wanting to know more about what happened while Clint was away, I'm thinking about writing that as its own story. It's been a fun opening jaunt into Avengers fandom - thanks again!


End file.
